Uncle J. - Monday, October 3 2005

went to see Uncle Jason @ Royal Columbian Hospital after dinner tonight. first time i've seen him since his terrible accident earlier this year. it's been almost four months since he's been in hospital.

a quick summary of what happened: he was fixing up stuff around his house and he fell from a +10-foot high ladder, onto a porcelain tile floor. his wife was in another part of the house at the time, and was only aware of the fall because of the loud crashing noise the ladder must've made. there was no cry for help, no time to yell; all she heard was a *thud* and when she got there all she saw was the fallen ladder and her husband in a crumpled heap on the floor...with a growing pool of red slowly spreading out across the floor from his head.

this was on saturday morning, June 18. the day before Father's Day.

a little history:

ever since i was born, uncle Jason, his wife Brenda, and later on their son Jesse, have all been good family friends of ours. always the "goofy tough guy"...i still remember the times my parents would drop me n my sister off to play at his house/farm after church sometimes. he had a son too, a few years younger than us, and he'd take us out on tractor rides around the fields (i remember how he'd let me steer once in a while), we'd rummage through stuff in the "spooky" old barn, i learned that chicken sh*t smells a LOT worse than cow/horse sh*t...lots of good memories.

originally from Cheung Chau (one of the islands surrounding HK, famous for seafood and dragonboating) he was a crazy fisherman too. i remember when my dad would take me along on fishing trips w/ uncle J and other people, and how uncle J always managed to be the noisiest/most obnoxious one...even if we weren't in the same boat! always doing crazy stuff haha, and he liked hunting too. i think i have a shell-casing or two that he let me have (or i swiped...can't remember =P). it was thanks to uncle J and a few other guys that i was able to have my first taste of venison at some dinner when i was a kid too. they must've had a successful hunting trip that day b/c they decided to have a dinner at someone's place that night, n all the parents brought their kids too. mmm...i still remember that deer meat. i think i got a nosebleed that night b/c i ate too much of it though...lol.

i still remember going to him and auntie Brenda's wedding.

our families were neighbours for a little while too before they moved out to Surrey; a carpenter/handyman by trade, uncle J. built his family's own house just down the street and across the block from the house i grew up in. i was too young to be of much help at the time, but when we did go over he'd let me do little odds and ends like hammer in nails, clear up building scraps, break stuff, shooting things with his nail gun...hahaha, just so many good childhood memories...

although i hadn't seen him up until tonight, i was kept aware of his condition and progress through regular emails/my parents and their friends:

the first few days after the initial accident were the scariest. the immediate news at first was just that he'd "had a fall", but then word came from my mom after she went to the hospital that same day to be with auntie Brenda that it wasn't good, and that it was much worse than a "fall" and that the doctors were scrambling to control the bleeding/swelling to keep him alive. i remember praying for him that very day in our house at that moment in the living room.

the following days were a rollercoaster of slightly hopeful news of the situation being "under control" and morbid news of the doctors having done their best. uncle J's immediate family and relatives were starting to fly in from other countries to be by his side.

after drilling multiple holes and trying different methods to control the swelling in his brain the doctors had basically run out of options and the family was told that they were going to slowly take him off life support as the doctors saw that they were no longer making progress, and that any chance of recovery was remote, and even if there was to be a turn of events, the amount of neurological and physical damage was substantial enough to suggest that Jason didn't have much chance of ever being more than comatose.

this is an email i received on the evening of June 20:

<"Hello Everybody,

Please pass this to everybody you know who is available to pray and
pray about this yourselves. Another CT scan was performed today and
it showed that Jason's condition has gotten worse, to the point where
the doctors will no longer help him anymore and they are basically
waiting for him to pass away. Please pray for Jason as hard as you
can and that God will heal Jason.">

at this point the doctors had done all they could, medical science and technology could do nothing more to save him. this story could have ended here, but it doesn't.

what i saw tonight was really nothing short of a miracle. we walked in and saw him lying on his hospital bed in the far right corner of the room with his head turned towards the right facing the corner. as i approched he seemed to be asleep, but when i got closer i could clearly see his eyes directed at us, and they followed as we walked to his bedside. he looked like the entire left side of his skull was missing, it basically looked like a deflated basketball. yet his eyes were intensely alert; always focusing on something, not just "zoned out". you could tell that he knew who we were and why we were there. he could move his left leg up and down, he'd respond to a thumbs up, and he even nodded is head when my mom asked him if he recognized me. he was very much alert, although probably very tired from visitors throughout the day and having gone through another operation just a few days ago. before leaving we all prayed for him, holding onto his left hand as we did. he followed us out with his gaze, and he waved goodbye as we left.

now despite all the positive stuff, we all still have to remember that he's only just come out of the valley and there's still a long, hard road of recovery ahead. on the bright side though, i know he isn't going to have to walk that road alone.

i'm praying for you uncle J.